~ All things botanical in photos and words—in my West Seattle garden and elsewhere; seeing and creating art and assorted musings.

MIDSUMMER’S BLESSINGS WITH HEAT!

AS OF TODAY, SUMMER’S PROMISE IS HERE with scorching temperatures, a good north breeze to make the heat bearable, loads of blooming lilies, ripening tomatoes and squash aplenty. The down side is the high probability of forest fires; we can see voluble smoke from the Mt. Hopper fire in the Olympic mountains.

I snapped some pretty nice photos over the last few days to share before we take off to Glacier NP in Montana.

This is ‘Rio Samba’. We first saw it in a beautiful rose garden at the foot of some steps leading to/from Coit Tower in San Francisco about twelve years ago. It has such an incredible range of color as it blooms and fades.

Pink sedum

The ‘flowers’ of eryngium yuccafolium with he dark red sedum telephium atropurpureum in the background.

About another six weeks before these Akane apples will be ready to pick–if they are spared the apple maggots!

Frilly leaves of a to-be- harvested-in-winter savoy cabbage.

A sunny and summer long blooming Sella d’Oro daylily.

Abuitilon ‘Red Tiger’ that I purchased at Chocolate Flower Farm in June. Isn’t it striking?

This turned out to be a nice color combination of begonia and echeverias.

Echinacea ‘Magnus’ just beginning to bloom. I bought seeds from Johnny’s about three years ago; they are easy to start and last for years.

Also from seed, a black colored hollyhock.

And, lastly, what could be sweeter than honeybees doing their job in your garden?